When You Are Not Excited About Your Offense

Football is football. Find commonalities in what your current team is going to run and match them up to whatever philosophically you enjoy.

Flexbone is not something that I run, but it seems like it would be a lot of fun, with a lot of possibilities. What don't you like about it?

Coach, out of curiousity, what is your philosophical slant/scheme?

Trojan,

I am personally not a fan of option football for two reasons:

1) You will always need an athletic QB to make it work well and not every class has an athletic QB. You can take the "best athlete" approach but I am not a fan of taking a round peg and trying to make it fit into a square hole. That best athlete may be a good runner but sooner or later you are going to need him to throw and only once in awhile do you find a kid special enough that can do both or does one so exceedingly well that you never worry about the other.
2) Philosophically, RBs help you win with their legs, QBs help you with with their smarts and arms.

Before someone goes Rich Rodriquez or Paul Johnson on me, keep this in mind. Those are college coaches who have had the luxury of picking players to fit their scheme through recruiting. They also have run into trouble when they needed their QBs to throw. Most of us are high school coaches. It is easier to take an average kid at QB and teaching him the position and use a ball control passing attack through timing passes than hoping you have a stud year after year. Sooner or later you run out of studs and either you switch schemes or you find yourself in a hole waiting for a star to come save you.

As Glenn "Tiger" Ellison said, "Fun football leads to positive football, which leads to optimistic football, which leads to winning football." The passing game, whether someone wants to admit it or not, is more fun for the kids and will cause more kids to come out for football and get more excited about the sport. I am not a guy who neglects the run but I see teams time and time again that get by with talent but then run into a defense that finally crushes them because when their running game fails, they can't pass to save their lives.

You can always find exceptions to the rule but I never recalled saying I would "throw" all the time or even throw the most. I was just not a fan of offenses that relied on option football and neglected the passing game.

Ideally, for me, if you had 65 snaps a game on offense: 30-35 runs, 30-35 passes. Dan Robinson and Andrew Coverdale are pretty much of the school of offensive thought that I have for high school ball.

<<1) You will always need an athletic QB to make it work well and not every class has an athletic QB. You can take the "best athlete" approach but I am not a fan of taking a round peg and trying to make it fit into a square hole. That best athlete may be a good runner but sooner or later you are going to need him to throw and only once in awhile do you find a kid special enough that can do both or does one so exceedingly well that you never worry about the other.
2) Philosophically, RBs help you win with their legs, QBs help you with with their smarts and arms.>>

Ok...as a guy who has run the flexbone I just have a couple of disagreements with these statements...
Granted, it depends on your Coach as far as what and how he is going to run the flex, but I have seen many flex teams that have been able to pass well when they want to, not just when they HAVE to. You still have four receivers out there...
Second, given the propensity of the modern DC to bring pressure, no matter WHAT your offense is, you have to hope your QB is a bit of an athlete or its gonna be a LONG season.
Third, I have had "traditional" pocket QB's that we ran the Flex with, and they did well for two reasons, 1) They were good decision makers, and learned when to give the ball, and when to keep it. Granted they weren't my primary run threat, but they made it work by being enough of a threat that when teams over-rotated to try and take away our pitch back, they would get the first down. 2) They knew they weren't going to get a ton of passes, and became more efficient passers as a result, making the most of what they got.
Last...and this is just me and my opinion... If your coach is JUST running the triple out of the flex, you can show him some of the other things that can be run out of the same system that work well. May's AFM had some good examples, i.e. Motion ISO, Trap and Power. The play action pass possibilities off of that are pretty awesome. We had some great success with running a Smash concept out of a "Tiger Blast" which was an orbit motion, fake to the TB, Roll out under pass. Smash on the near side with the Backside WR running a post. We would change it up with the Tiger Blast "Throwback" where the BSWR would Fake his Post and come back to the QB for the quick throw. Two TD's in one game with that one play. Just some thoughts to discuss with your HC/OC about some things to help the kids find it more fun and give you a chance to express your wants/philosophy.

This topic was a concern to me when I moved onto my second coaching job. I left a program where the veer option out of I and split backs was our base and I loved the option. So, I was hesitant when I saw our base would be an inverted bone. But, I learned the offense and eventually loved that system as well. Now, I coach in a Wing T system. The Wing T would not be my first choice of a system, but I'm getting into it and enjoying learning it. No offense, locharion, but I can't imagine not liking a system enough to make me feel miserable about coaching.

Coach,

I am not sure how to say this without the risk of offending you, but I think it comes down to whether or not you really want to coach football. Since you are not the head coach, you don't get to decide what offense the team is going to run. I know you say that you will sell it to the kids, but if your heart is not in it, they will see through you. If you can't buy in 100%, it is unfair to the head coach and the team for you to be there because at some point your negative attitude will reveal itself.

Instead, why not look at this as an opportunity to increase your knowledge of offensive football? Never quit learning. Become a master of this offensive system.

As a coach, how would you deal with a player who came in with an attitude like yours? I think most of us would tell him to get on board or go play defense. I know I wouldn't depend on a kid who didn't believe in what we are running because that negative attitude will keep him from doing his best. At some point in the season it would sneak up and bite us in the arse.

If you are truly thankful for this coaching opportunity, then you owe it to the head coach, the staff, and the players to buy in 100%. That is what we expect of each and every player, so as coaches we have the responsibility to model that attitude and behavior for our players.

See if you can get them to do the following:

1) Install the Rocket Sweep series;
2) Install the Choice pass to the backside WR off Rocket motion;
3) Install the Look pass to the backside WR on all running plays.

This will spice things up considerably for you with minimal extra effort, and none wasted on learning to love the option.

kc: This may sound testy in return but as you said, you are old school and most assistants today in the game would actually like to be heard occasionally instead of being told to go along with the flow just because someone said so. That doesn't work with most of the kids I have worked with in the classroom and on the field and it probably will not endear your assistants to your vision or way of doing things. If you work in a professional business environment and managed your employees with that same modus operandi, you would have a mutiny on your hands. Yeah, we are getting paid to coach but it also comes down to if you are choosing to give your time to a program and its kids at the cost of spending time with your own kids and family, you would like to have professional satisfaction to go along with personal satisfaction.

Superpower, I am not offended by what you said and I will just respectfully agree to disagree on some of your points. Your feedback was thoughtful and constructive but for close to ten years I have seen this school not be able to pass the ball effectively when they needed to because they lived and died with veer and triple and play action off of it. There are unique challenges to face in the position and I am aware of the learning opportunities that may lie within it.

I have another question for you sir, do you have a great feeder system into this school? One reason we have been successful is since we run the same system down to 2nd grade with some modifications, we are able to hone our kids somewhat to their position. If you run the flex, perhaps by the time he gets in high school he could be very well versed in it? One reason we have been pretty successful in the throwing game is our guys have been throwing for six years before they even get to the high school level. I am like yourself, I love the throwing game, that is how we got the basketball players out this past spring, they want to catch the football exspecially on jump balls. Before I came to the school that I am at now, I was a Wing-t guy for several years. That is what I was introduced to at the beginning of my coaching career so I know two offenses fairly well. I have respect for the option and the veer since we have played West Monroe and John Curtis whom employ those type offenses and do very well at it. As as young coach, I was just thrilled to learn even after 20 years of being in the game, I have never stopped learning. Football other than my family have become my passion in every phrase of the game. Good Luck and if I can help, let me know.

All of our basketball players come out for "fuball" and we hardly ever throw. I think its a weak excuse to run "basketball on grass" attack. Just my HO.

It's a self-fufilling prophecy...

"Throwing is fun" for whom exactly? Receivers and QBs? What about the OL and backs? "Well, we can't get any of those guys out"...gee maybe becasue you're not running an offense that is fun for THEM?

Balance, Daniel-san...balance! If you have a well-coached balanced offense and you have success, you'll get the kids out, and they won't just be prima-donna WR's. If it takes a certain style of offense to get kids to come out for your program, there's something wrong somewhere else.

[glow=red,2,300]BALANCE!![/glow]

I understand lochness, you are right about the balance of offense but we have never had too much trouble getting linemen out for our team, our rb the last few years has had over a 1000 yards rushing and a 1000 receiving from our QB last year. It is just our offense of choice and the kids like it since we have been pretty successful with it since 1993. We probably throw 85 perent of the time compared to 15 percent running the football. Our offense is probably more flash than our defense but our defense has been the rock for us for several years also. We have been blessed to have both on each side of the ball do well. We have used the pass to open up the running lanes instead of the other way around but it has been successful for us. Strangely enough I have seen folks send the house and I have seen folks drop 9 in order to defend the pass. Most of it goes back to film study on how a team attacks a spread team.

locharion,
AS a young coach even I agree with Superpower.

ASk yourself this question, can you be happy there? If the answer is no then find somewhere else.

Because being happy is the most important thing.

I have coached in a wing-t, I, Shotgun adn flexbone offense as well as a 46, 50 front defenses.

Find happiness. If this place will make you happy then coach there and as time goes on make suggestions. If you feel you can't do that I wouldn't stay.